Earlier this week, reports surfaced that EA is putting Mass Effect on ice for the time being and downsizing the development team behind Mass Effect: Andromeda. The news perhaps comes as no real surprise; EA isn't exactly a publisher known for its mercy when it comes to studios that underperform or fail to meet its lofty expectations.

And expectations are really what this whole Andromeda saga is about. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you'll have no doubt heard or read about Mass Effect: Andromeda and its borderline disastrous launch period. The latest entry in one of gaming's most beloved franchises, Andromeda had the weight of the galaxy on its shoulders from day one. It had to prove that Mass Effect was in capable hands following the departure of many of BioWare's senior employees. It had to break free of the original trilogy while still retaining all of the stuff that fans wanted. It had to live up to Shepard's legacy.

In hindsight, Andromeda didn't manage to do any of those things. While it's not quite the absolute pile of garbage that some would have you believe it is, it's certainly not a great Mass Effect game. Its flaws run deep and a thick layer of tedious gameplay tries its best to keep you away from the good stuff as often as possible. It's also a technical mess - something that's very rarely forgiven by outspoken gamers on the internet these days.

But did Mass Effect: Andromeda ever stand a chance, even before everyone dogpiled on the game's embarrassing facial animations? You could argue that it was doomed from the start - a clearly rushed release that we saw very, very little of until its launch date was suddenly creeping our way. Couple that with the fact that BioWare is now a company that many consider to be well past its prime, and you've got a project that's always had a mountain to climb.

If Andromeda has proven anything, it's that the internet can be an unforgivably brutal place. When IGN started squeezing out those short gameplay videos not long before release, people started to fixate on the game's visual blemishes. Do Andromeda's facial animations and dodgy character models ruin the game? Of course not, but they were something that people could easily latch onto and pick apart - you didn't have to play the game to realise that it looked bloody stupid.

When EA Access' early trial period opened up, much of the damage was already done. At that point, it was just a case of capturing more examples of the title's hideous humans and slapping them up on social media and YouTube for everyone to see. It had been quite some time since we saw such rampant negativity snowball so quickly.

Of course, the gaming media was partly to blame for this - ourselves included. Whether or not the facial animation kerfuffle was blown out of proportion is up for debate, but the fact remains that it shrouded the impending release in an air of negativity. Again, most of the damage was done well before Andromeda actually launched. There's nothing clever about outright wanting a game to fail, but when the internet smells blood, it's rarely able to control itself. Andromeda was torn to shreds before it had even had a chance to prove its worth.

Not that it had all that much to prove in the end, but you get where we're coming from. In an ideal world, everyone would have looked at that pre-release footage and said "okay, it doesn't look great, but I'll reserve judgement until I've played it for myself". A week later everyone would have taken to NeoGAF to explain how it's the worst thing since actual dog sh*t anyway, but at least we could have said that we'd given the game a fair shot. Instead we're left with people who'll look at the headline of this article, scroll down to the comments section, and type "no".

So what do you think? Was Mass Effect: Andromeda given a fair chance, or did the internet come down on it like a Reaper invasion before it had even entered orbit? Vote in our poll, and share your calm and collected thoughts in the comments section below.

Was Mass Effect: Andromeda unfairly torn apart by the internet before it had even launched? (145 votes)

Yes, it was ripped to shreds for fun

14%

To an extent, but some criticism was deserved

57%

No, it was the game's fault for looking bad to begin with

Robert's been a dedicated PlayStation fan since the days of Tekken 2, and he still loves a good dust up. When he's not practising combos, he's usually getting lost in the latest 100-hour RPG, or, y'know, replaying The Witcher 3.

The game was buggy, graphically weird and in general had some hokey writing however, that would be passable if it was actually a great "Vid Gam" which sadly it isn't.

Adopting the structure of Inquisition was completely the wrong move. The original Mass Effect trilogy correctly reigned in open world elements, it was essentially a linear RPG with some light exploration mechanics. This kept the game tighter than a weekly shopper at pound land. Andromeda on the other hand was just wild, it was overstuffed with side missions places to explore and just pure fluff.

None of the characters even approach the quality of the worst character of the originally trilogy, Jack (fite me), they're all milquetoast nonsense or skreeing annoyances (PeeWee shermans little house or whatever she is called.) Without characters you can't have a good mass effect game, it just doesn't work.

Gameplay wise, the game does play better but that's secondary when the actual structure makes a lot of the game feel like a chore. The planet scanning makes a mind boggling return combined with the fact that before the patch you had to wait roughly the lord of the rings trilogy length to jump between planets.

It's an ok first attempt and that second album would have been easier to bash out, but the internet isn't entirely to blame for this, bioware made a bit of a stinker here and people reacted.

I agree that the Internet's tendency to dogpile is scary and dangerous. This discussion goes beyond just games: a difference of political opinion, for example, even if carefully and considerately communicated can see the web ruin you in minutes.

On the subject of Mass Effect specifically, it's a major franchise with a huge following — it doesn't surprise me that a huge spotlight was placed on the terrible animations. The same thing happened to Horizon prior to launch, but the difference is that Horizon was a good game so it overcame very quickly that initial wave of negativity.

And I think that's the crucial thing here. Many people did
give Andromeda a chance — myself included — and unfortunately it's a sub-par game. I don't agree with you that the tedious pacing obstructs a good game; I personally feel that even the "best bits" in Andromeda are average at best.

There are shades of grey here, though. Is Andromeda the worst game ever made? Of course not. Is it massively disappointing and deserving of strong criticism, though? Yes, I think it is.

I don't think anything reported on the game was untrue, so it seems fair to me. Considering all the fantastic games that came out in 2017 that DON'T have those same issues, I don't see how it is unfair to point out it's horrible flaws. Mass Effect is a game with HEAVY dialog, yet they felt it was acceptable to mold characters faces out of mashed potatoes? The mini games are absolute chores too. No matter how fun the rest of the game might be, when it's interrupted by nonsense every few minutes, it's not going to be a good experience.

We aren't entitled to a good game, but we are entitled to report on bad games.

I'm a big fan of Mass Effect 2, enjoyed 3 as well despite the ending. But this looked so bad in so many ways. They really didn't do themselves any favours. Was so gutted when I realised had it had no chance of being up to ME2 standards. I'm not buying something just because it has the same name, the quality needs to be there.

For some reason these days, the internet will either collectively absolutely love something, or hate it. Personally I found Andromeda to be an OK game by normal standards, but by the standards set by previous mass effect games, unfortunately it leaves alot to be desired. It's not the worst thing ever like some commenters would have you believe, but for me, it was a big disappointment.

See, I can understand why people would enjoy Andromeda, even if it really isn't my cup of tea, because it has all the ingredients of an "okay" game; provided you're able to ignore the frankly ludicrous number of glitches it seems to have.

As for why the Internet dogpiled on it? Just look at the releases around it on PS4 alone - Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 HD, Horizon : Zero Dawn, Persona 5 and probably some others I'm forgetting. While one of these is a HD collection and all, they're all absolutely fantastic games and considerably more worthy of your time and money than a game that even the fans are seemingly openly admitting isn't great.

Is that EA's fault? Probably. They needed their "big" Q1 game, and presumably rushed the game out the door; but regardless of -who- the blame for that even lies on; it's still not acceptable to push out an unfinished, unpolished product; and it's nice to have seen some degree of resistance, no matter how most of it seemed to center around minute things like animation flubs.

I beat the game played a lot of the side quest. Not dog poop it was an 8. Good story, easy to use powers, a lot of damn driving lol. I agree a lot of filler but only if you wanted to. Actually maxed out every power by the end. I'm not trading it in, hoping patches help it out when I play again down the road

Publishers want successful franchises - they thrive on them. They want to sell games and get interest from the name alone. That has a flip side, when a franchise is very popular, quality has to be maintained because when a popular franchise crashes, it crashes loudly.

The internet can be cruel and everyone loves to pile in when blood is sniffed, but it is also pretty fickle. Good point about Horizon, I saw lots of videos about that one NPC characters, prophecies of doom and all that. However, as soon as people played the game it was all about the praise, wonky animation forgiven. In ME:A's case, that original concern on quality was validated by the game not being release ready.

I firmly believe that if there hadn't been the animation hoopla sales still wouldn't have been great because the game was not great. If it were a new IP or not a mainstream saga then it would have ducked out quietly but a well known franchise has an inbuilt quality gate that people expect.

The message is that the game was rushed and released too early. The warning signs were there from the early E3 reveals and the dribbles of info. As soon as those signs were vindicated, criticism became heavier. I'm not one to say, hey the internet is a lovely place all the time but I don't think criticisms were unwarranted on this occasion.

This was the first ME game I was interested in since the combat looked a lot better to perform than its predecessors. I saw all the bad animations and felt a series that relied on building great relationships was imperative to have good animations to be convincing. I also read al the reviews an this game had far more issues than animations with Glitches galore, poor acting, boring intro, and bland planets. I do not like gay stuff in games as well that has to be in your face. Horizon had a character that was gay but at least it was subtle.

I watched tons of videos and even watched most endings knowing I wasn't going to buy the game at the state it was in. I thought the ending was very boring and overall a mediocre game. I totally agree with 6/10 from angry joe. Yes, I didn't play the game but I watched over 2-4 hours of gameplay and that was enough for me to stay clear of this game.

@get2sammyb The difference between Horizon and Mass Effect is that Horizon had one 'dodgy' character and was a 'side quest' - taken out of context too, where as ME:A had quite dodgy animation with virtually all characters.

I understand the game was made to a limited budget too and tried to pack in much more than Horizon did. Horizon is set in a relatively small area and had very few side quests by comparison. Most of those, if any, had very little impact on the story as whole. ME:A had multiple, fairly large areas - maybe not individually as large as Horizon's single area but combined, much larger with more choice/consequence too.

In many ways Horizon is a much 'simpler' game - even down to the levelling and associated upgrade path. Much more limited on weapons and ammo. It also didn't have the weight and expectation that ME:A had, trying to follow the trilogy. That doesn't mean Horizon isn't a great game at all but it had a lot less areas that could go wrong, a smaller overall cast, less choice/consequence/impact to script and maybe could focus more on the game-play. Lets not forget ME:A also has a MP too.

We also know how 'angry' the Mass Effect fans were at the end of ME3 so maybe that put pressure on the developers. Too afraid to really push the boundaries in case of backlash.

Overall, its not a terrible game. Its not befitting of the Mass Effect game and like a number of big AAA RPG's, has a number of bugs too. The weight of expectation certainly contributed to the disappointment but is it worse than the Technomancer? Of course we have had the Witcher 3 this gen which really raised the bar for RPG's and I think people were hoping this could have been the ME equivalent...

I was put off buying this game by the videos I saw and the media. But the game should be under scrutiny considering the amount of money we are expected to pay. People would be pissed off if the gaming media did not highlight the game had issues and forked out the money. I will but the game once it has been fixed like it should in the first place. This is more evidence not to pre order games anymore and if everyone did that then maybe the game companies would deliver a better quality product.

@NathanUC I am kind of the same way. I do take the time to read reviews to understand why a game scored the way it did.

If it scored lower because it just wasn't the reviewer's cup of tea (but something I was interested in getting), I will probably pick it up even if there isn't a discount. If it gets low scores because it has technical issues (i.e. glitch-fest), I might wait to see if things get fixed (sad reality of gaming today). If it gets low scores because of mechanical issues (i.e. bad game design decisions), I might just avoid all together.

Hell, there are highly rated games I avoid. I actually didn't like Mass Effect 2 and didn't even bother getting Mass Effect 3. I haven't played a Call of Duty in ages. I have very little interest in Majora's Mask despite its high praise.

''It had to break free of the original trilogy while still retaining all of the stuff that fans wanted. It had to live up to Shepard's legacy.In hindsight, Andromeda didn't manage to do any of those things.''

''Its flaws run deep and a thick layer of tedious gameplay tries its best to keep you away from the good stuff as often as possible. It's also a technical mess.''

''a clearly rushed release''

I think you already answered your own question!

Should gamers be forgiving to a game that clearly should've launched in the state it was released in? No, absolutely not. Broken and buggy games are not uncommon, and I'm glad people are sending the right message. The last thing we need is to give publishers another reason to dump their broken games on the market as soon as possible.

@NintendoFan4Lyf If a game gets a poor score because it wasn't a reviewers cup of tea, I find a new review. I'm not looking for an opinion, I'm looking for a review! Back when I used to write reviews, I gave games I hate good scores because the games were good but not my style. I don't think opinion should play a role in reviews in a format like this.

I completely agree that the content is far more important than a score. A game like Prey may get decent scores, but I'm more sensitive to the horrible input lag issue, so the experience would be far worse for me than someone who might not notice the input lag.

I mean you say in a perfect world we would all see it looks crappy and reserve judgement until we play it. I don't think a perfect world is one where you spend $60 of your hard earned dollars to play a game that looks half-assed

Good sport for acknowledging the gaming press' share of the blame, Robert. Good sport.

I have yet to play or buy the game (I'll probably get it once it drops to 5 bucks on sale or something), but I'm pretty sure that all were hard on the game. EA, the press, and above all, the gamers.

Devil May Cry 2 was a sub-par game as well, but Capcom didn't flat out abandon it as a franchise. Every good franchise is allowed to fall on its butt once a while and recuperate. Mass Effect being put on ice indefinitely was a harsh sentence, one that smells Dead Space 3 all over.

I also think that it shows that us consumers don't care if the game is from a popular franchise or from a popular company. We make our own judgements based on games and we have our own standards that need to be met

@Flaming_Kaiser Of course. I wasn't saying anything different. Point I was making though is that Horizon overall is much simpler game in many ways and didn't have the same weight of expectation on it. A lot of people were expecting it to be a game of style over substance anyway.

Mass Effect:Andromeda though, despite ME3's ending, had big shoes to fill and an expectant fanbase. It was made on a similar budget if rumours are to be believed and packs in a lot more. If Bioware had 'simplified' things to the same level, the fans would be disappointed - although maybe the game would be more polished. I can't see EA though allowing Bioware to spend a year+ on just developing and creating one of the enemies - the time GG spent on just the Thunderjaw.

I certainly wasn't criticising Horizon at all - I love the game and its easily my Game of the Year. Its much more an Open World Action game than an RPG though even though it does have a number of RPG elements. Horizon has more in common with games like Arkham Knight where as ME:A has more in common with the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4.

What makes it most disappointing in my opinion is the fact it has Mass Effect on the box.

The internet hyperbolizes a lot. At some point you wonder if all the negativity (and vice versa on occasion) is justified or just overblown. You eventually wonder if Andromeda is really that bad.

Personally I don't have an opinion on the game since I haven't played it. I only recently got the Mass Effect Trilogy on PS3, so it'll be some time before I touch Andromeda. It really didn't leave a good impression to start with, and maybe I'll admit it was overkill before release, but it's fair game afterwards. Yes, criticism can be overblown, but after release it can be validated. Hopefully in a mature manner, of course.

It's also like what was said: Andromeda had a lot to live up to, and BioWare (especially Mass Effect) fans are pretty passionate. Factor in the high standards a AAA game should have, and it was probably a matter of how deep the wound would be.

Im glad i didnt listen to everybody i was able to get it with a coupon For under 40$, doesnt live up to mass effect trilogy but after the patches its looks alot better i had alot of fun, its at least a 7 and hey it looks awesome on pro im willing to try anything that gets a pro patch!!

i haven't played past the first few hours, which were not favourable imo, regardless of whether it says mass effect or not on the box. i haven't finished the game or checked it out since the the various patches so i don't if the 'internet' has been massively unfair to it. i don't read a lot of websites or use social media often anyway. i just went back and platinumed horizon for a second time on a different account instead.

the game disappeared out of the uk charts pretty quickly, so i'm a bit surprised its price hasn;t been slashed already.

If the game does not live up to expectations and reviews confirm that, I would not blame the internet. I would blame EA. First for allowing its release in this state and then for taking it on the game and the developers.

As others have said, if a game is good it will shine thru the blemishes and the initial scorn. Western AAA devs expect millions sold out of every game based on IP familiarity and hype alone. EA should have seen AC Unity and learn.

If you release a buggy, rushed game, your game deserves to be torn apart. Too many games get released on the release now, fix later mentality. Andromeda may have been made an example of that as people are finally getting tired of this.

It's still hard to believe that it shipped in the condition it was in. They had to have known it looked bad. I gave it a chance even though I was leary, and honestly I regret buying it at full price. Whether it was the fault of EA for not giving them more time, or Bioware for launching the game in a poor state, we'll probably never know. At this point, I'm saying no mercy. Sweep the leg. Get em outta here.

Has it been unfairly criticised? I haven't played it so can't say from my own experience but if, as @get2sammyb says, it is boring and tedious I'm in no rush to find out! I know the "internet" can go overboard with the hyberbole when it comes to certain games - and a lot of the time the hate is unfair - but with Andromeda it is a AAA game in a hugely beloved series. The original trilogy is awesome. I don't think EA or Bioware deserve the benefit of any doubt if they have put out a title with as many problems as this is said to have...

BioWare is known for succeeding in the past with games like Dragon Age and the previous Mass Effect titles, so when they release something like Andromeda and it suffers from so many problems, I think they deserve the blame and heat.

Release an unfinished game and this is the exact response from the public you can expect these days! Just delay the game and release a finished version. Look at Zelda and Horizon for examples of how games should perform at launch.

My biggest issue is the awkward dialogue and interactions I feel like this was written by a human who has never met a human before or a robot. The scenario writer did good work though although it'd have been nice to ease up on the planet hoping in some missions.

I think it's a shame they seem to have cancelled the series due to the latest entry being a flop as it was once a great series. However, it was not necessary to make more and I feel Andromeda was very poor quality. Not a suprise due to a lack of footage and marketing. I'm in two ways about this, but I'm slightly more leaning towards the negative.

It was this years No Mans Sky, People, rightly or wongly were expecting great things from it, but what was delivered was a broken buggy hollow mess of a game, how is it even acceptable to release in that state, how did that go Gold?

While I dont agree with the dark hive mind of the internet, I do think most of the comments were critical but very fair, I only hope that the big companies and devs are starting to realise people just wont accept broken games on release and they are no longer being silent about it.

I don't need the internet to know that Mass Effect Andromeda was a terrible game. I have first hand experience. My perspective when enjoying a game is the ONLY one that matters to me. That said, I find it a little pathetic that people can say such things without even really giving the game a chance. I went in with an open mind expecting a decent ARPG with likable characters, an interesting setting, and an expansion on the universe of the Mass Effect games. At the very least I wanted a halfway decent foundation for future games. I didn't get any of that. I took a chance with Bioware after the Mass Effect 3 ending, and Dragon Age Inquisition... I regret it. Those hang ups are my own and I accept that, but I'm very indifferent to Mass Effect being on hiatus. I will not buy another EA game full price. It's sad to me when I can enjoy something by Spiders much more than ME:A. At least they put a lot of heart and soul into their games with the limited budget they have.

I was expecting the writing to be a bit naff but some of the stuff I've heard is just dreadful. It's like the game was made by Spiders, not BioWare. And why the effing hell did they continually bring get back planet scanning?! It's honestly a crying shame with what's happened to BioWare who were one of my favorite developers many moons ago.

Some people always go overboard but the bottomline is that unfortunately the game isn't up to par with the other ones (even 3) in the series and on top of that Bioware Montreal didn't do itself any favors by having one of the lead developers openly hating on white people. Do I agree that something as silly as that should factor into people disliking a game? Absolutely not, because stuff like that doesn't effect the game, but it, along with other factors helped create a lot of pre-release negativity. Hopefully Bioware and EA smarten the hell up at some point, but I've been wanting to see that in EA's case for over a decade now and it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen.

With the quality of other games in the last few years: the Witcher, Horizon Zero Dawn, Doom...etc, it didn't stand a chance. Makes you wonder about the level of talent in the development company and the level of group think. The publisher is also to be blamed as it seemed to be rushed out the door.

This game's biggest mistake was being an open world game. As soon as you get into the non-open world stuff (last planet, some other parts I won't name because spoilers) the game directly feels more ME-y.

Oh, and the combat is a step down. Yes, you yourself had more freedom, but the cost was just way too big imo.I absolutely LOVE the combat system of ME 2 and ME3, where I get to control what my squadmates do and when they do it...it adds some strategy, and I really missed that here.

Despite it's many flaws, I still enjoyed my time playing through it.It had some good mysteries (which now won't be solved I guess....a VERY big f-u to all who did buy the game and enjoyed it enough to play through it) and the crew really started to shine the further you got in the game.

I sometimes feel people forget how the first ME was; nobody liked most of the cast then either; it was ME2 and ME3 that made you love them. Andromeda really feels a lot like the Original ME for me (without the briljant end song though ).

I couldn't finish it and I kept giving it a couple more hours here and there but it just didn't capture me like the old trilogy did.... Was really gutted when I traded it in because I really wanted to finish it but couldn't bring myself to carry on playing. The Internet can't be blamed for that!

I never played the original Mass Effect games and was interested in jumping in with Andromeda. I did see the hate before the game released but I held judgment until I played it myself. After playing around 10 hours I was so disappointed by the game that I started playing the original Mass Effect trilogy instead.

Yeah, the thing that got me to finally start playing the original games was how poor Andromeda was.

I played the Game to completion - around 100hrs as I also did all the side quests that opened up via my playthrough. I preferred the Combat myself as the previous games were so 'corridor' shooters, it was much better to have more freedom, more options etc. Most of the combat in the Trilogy was corridor after corridor after corridor with the odd narrow room battle.

The first few hours were definitely slow and its not until you get to Eos and the Nexus becomes inhabited that it really starts getting going. The main story is OK but I also felt my decisions had some impact. Some I expected to have more impact of course and some may be more significant if I replayed to see what differences that made - like whether to save the one and blow up a base, save hundreds but lose the one and but the base remained, what difference my first 'base' makes if I opted for science instead of military.

Granted the game isn't a great Mass Effect game and certainly not the best RPG this generation either. I can't say I hated it or lost interest - as I said, I spent 100hrs playing it to completion. Its nowhere near as good as the Witcher but I enjoyed it more than Fallout 4 - a game I lost interest in very quickly. Combat is better than Fallouts in my opinion and the characters are better too. Maybe Fallout may have better characters if I play through but the ones I have met so far are forgettable and I don't care about 'my' character either. I had more affinity to the main character in Fallout 3.

It was unacceptable to release it how it was. I perservered through the whole game but it felt so hollow, so wooden. Even with the vastness of the planets/galaxies, it had an empty feeling. It had no heart. It is an atrocious entry in to the Mass Effect universe and considering the amount of time and resource they had, there is really no excuse to release something so shoddy

Hmm. Maybe a little bit. I feel like the animation hullabaloo was overblown. Yeah, the animations weren't amazing, but they're not amazing in lots of games. I thought the writing was largely fine, and character interactions were about as entertaining as they've ever been.

The biggest problems with the game were tied to the new ideas. The semi-open world nature of the game was incredibly misguided. Empty, boring worlds, and repetitive, irrelevant side quests. Top that off with a fairly mediocre story and it's not hard to see why people were disappointed.

If only the animations were the only problem with the game. I've had the game for over a month and (while I've actually not seen any real glitch on my PS4), I've not been able to finish the game. Its just not good from a writing, character and gameplay standpoint. The only redeeming quality is the Mass Effect World. Nothing else is particularly good.